from the sock-it-to-me dept

You would think that, at some point, people are finally going to get that there are such things as satirical news organizations and that they're not serious in what they write. Yet it seems not a week goes by in which someone isn't either fooled by a parody story or railing against it as some kind of funny-demon that ought to be destroyed. The latest to be caught up in this web of barely-veiled humorous deception is the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who has threatened to sue satirical news site News Nerd over a fictional story about Patti LaBelle opening up a can of aged whoop-ass on her.

“The stories were not presented as satire or humor,” Franklin said through her publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn. “It was presented as a serious news story intended to depict me in a slanderous and derogatory way — defamation of character.”

And for that, she's suggested she wants $10 million whole American dollars. The story that was not presented as satire or humor, according to Franklin, included such totally not funny or satirical lines as:

Onlookers say Labelle quickly removed her wig and earrings as she approached Franklin. Aretha, knowing that the removal of earrings is a tell-tale sign that a fight is about to ensue, attempted to prepare herself for the confrontation. Franklin was quickly struck with a Mayweather style right and left and stumbled backwards, landing awkwardly.

If you aren't now laughing, check yourself into the nearest mental health center and ask them what happened to your sense of humor. If you don't immediately realize that this is fictional, we, the people, politely request you promise us never to procreate and thereby poison the gene pool with your lack of basic comprehension and common sense. Or you could, you know, just check the bottom of any News Nerd page you might land upon, where it reads:

The stories posted on TheNewsNerd are for entertainment purposes only. The stories may mimic articles found in the headlines, but rest assured they are purely satirical.

And that should take care of that. It's worth noting that no actual law suits yet appear to have been filed, so perhaps Franklin's likely-frustrated lawyers have talked some sense into her. On the other hand, Franklin has been known in the past to demand respect, and that you think about what you're trying to do to her. Meanwhile, the story has gone viral because of course it has, countermanding her wish entirely.

from the our-patent-system-at-work dept

There's a famous story of how IBM sued Sun for patent infringement in the early days. The patent claims from IBM were ridiculous, and Sun's engineers pointed that out to IBM's lawyers. In response, the men in blue made the famous statement:

"OK, maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

In Sun's early history, we didn't think much of patents. While there's a kernel of good sense in the reasoning for patents, the system itself has gotten goofy. Sun didn't file many patents initially. But then we got sued by IBM for violating the "RISC patent" - a patent that essentially said "if you make something simpler, it'll go faster". Seemed like a blindingly obvious notion that shouldn't have been patentable, but we got sued, and lost. The penalty was huge. Nearly put us out of business. We survived, but to help protect us from future suits we went on a patenting binge. Even though we had a basic distaste for patents, the game is what it is, and patents are essential in modern corporations, if only as a defensive measure. There was even an unofficial competition to see who could get the goofiest patent through the system. My entry wasn't nearly the goofiest.

Of course, it's easy to point out that the folks named on the patents are claiming themselves that the patents were part of a joke to see how bad the patent office is. But, you can take it to another level altogether, and have folks who actually know quite a bit about the technology go through the patents one by one and explain why each of them is a total joke.

This is yet another in an exceptionally long line of examples of what a complete mess our patent system has become. I'm curious if the patent system supporters out there can come up with some sort of way to defend the patent system in this particular situation.

from the um,-huh? dept

Someone who prefers to remain anonymous sent over this odd story of a musical duo who put up a notice on the band's website claiming that, due to "piracy," they were no longer going to sell CDs. But the reasoning makes no sense at all:

NOTICE: Due to uncontrolled Music Piracy, [Our album]
will no longer be sold to the general public. We refuse to cater to thieves and criminals. When the Worldwide Piracy problems is solved, then we
will begin sales once again.

Notice I chopped out the name of the band/album, because this seems so outlandish that I'm wondering if it's just a publicity stunt. Or a joke. It seems like it must be, because the basic logic of the statement above is so backwards as to defy reason. By not selling a CD, you're basically telling people the only way to get the album is through unauthorized channels. At least offering the CD lets some people buy it. Claiming that not selling it is a way to avoid "catering to thieves and criminals" makes no sense, since all it does is make it that much more difficult for anyone to support the band legally. That's why I'm guessing this is some sort of joke. The band also has a Twitter account (again, not linking to it on purpose), which is filled with a ton of articles about unauthorized access to content (many of them very old articles) with commentary that is somewhat amusing for how far off the mark it is. For example, one Twitter message "blames 'piracy'" on some of Nine Inch Nails' experiments -- the ones that are making the band lots of money. So, again, I'm wondering if this is just some sort of reverse psychology attempt by a band to get people to download their stuff. Seems like there are more effective ways of doing that.

from the fair-use-anyone? dept

It's been well documented how many people/organizations abuse the DMCA takedown process to try (and usually fail) to make content they don't like disappear, even if there's a legitimate reason for it being up. In the latest such example, a weatherman in Boston made a comment that many considered to be... a bit off-color for the local evening news. In discussing the snowfall in certain areas, he noted: "Picking up some snow are we? Yes we are. In Princeton we picked up 9 inches of snow and in Billerica we had 7." Then there's a brief pause before he steps forward and says: "The biggest amount I could find--almost as big as me--about 9 inches."

The station came up with an explanation for the statement, saying that he had a problem with his monitor and was displayed funny -- and thought that the viewing audience could see him that way too. Perhaps.

Still, though, the station, WHDH, has been aggressively issuing DMCA takedowns over the video (who knows how long the video above will stay up), even though it's almost certainly fair use, and courts have found that those sending takedowns need to take fair use into account. Justin Silverman, over at the Citizen Media Law Project, explains succinctly why this is almost certainly fair use:

In this case there's a fairly strong argument that the 27-second clip of Bouchard is fair. The amount of the original broadcast used is very small, the purpose of the clip is to spur public discussion, and there is arguably no effect on WHDH's news market. It's likely WHDH either didn't consider fair use before ordering the clip's takedown, or it simply didn't care.

And that's an issue. The DMCA allows copyright holders to shoot first and not care later. And that's a problem, because it can put a serious crimp on public discussion (which raises some serious First Amendment questions). Yes, in this case, it's just an off-color joke, but in many other cases it could be much more important speech.